Chapter 8 - The Practice of Self-Responsibility

Note to the reader: This is chapter 8 of an 11 part series of notes / important ideas gathered from my reading of The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden.

To feel confident in my mind and my ability to handle life’s challenges, and to feel worthy of happiness requires a sense of control over my life. To feel in control of my life, I needs to take initiative, and to practice taking responsibility for my existence.

By practicing self-responsibility, we are using our mind to achieve desired results - thus influencing our ability to trust ourselves - our self-esteem. Our self-esteem influences our future actions, forming a feedback loop between taking responsibility and our level of self-esteem.

What Practicing Self-Responsibility Entails

I am responsible for the achievement of my desires

No one owes me the achievement of my desires. I must take responsibility for what I want, and create an action plan on how to achieve it. If what I desire requires the cooperation of others, I must be aware of what it is that they need from me in order to cooperate. I must speak to their self-interest. I do not hold a mortgage on anyone’s life or energy.

What am I willing to do to get what I want?

I am responsible for my choices and actions

Being responsible for my choices and actions means taking ownership of what I do (not necessarily from the perspective of moral chastisement, but more global). My choices and actions are a reflection of who I am. How would I act if I took full responsibility for my choices and actions?

I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my work

No one can possibly be accountable for the level of awareness I bring to my work. I can choose to operate at a high level of consciousness at work, to do the best that I can and be aware of all that is required of me, or I can choose to bring as little consciousness as necessary, or anywhere in between.

I am responsible for the level of consciousness I bring to my relationships

I am responsible for my choice of companions, and to the awareness I bring, or fail to bring to every encounter. Am I present to what is being said? Do I take notice of how others are affected by what I say and do?

I am responsible for my behavior with other people - coworkers, associates, customers, spouse, children, friends

I am responsible for how I speak, and how I listen. I am responsible for the promises I keep, or fail to keep. I am responsible for how I treat others.

I am responsible for how I prioritize my time

Are the choices that I make with regards to my actions in congruence with my values? Are my actions in congruence with my goals? Am I taking responsibility in the attainment of my goals?

For example, if my task at work is to find new clients for my firm, but I spend 90 percent of my time engaging in office trivia, I need to take a greater responsibility for how I use my time.

I am responsible for the quality of my communications

I am responsible for the clarify of my communications. I am responsible to clarify if my listeners have understood me. I am responsible for speaking loudly enough and clearly enough to be heard. I am responsible for my ability to convey my thoughts adequately.

I am responsible for my personal happiness

One of the characteristics of immaturity is the belief that it is someone else’s job to make me happy - much as it was once my parents’ job to keep me alive. If only someone would love me, then I would love myself. If only someone would take care of me, then I would be contented. If only someone would spare me the necessity of making decisions, then I would be carefree. If only someone would make me happy.

Taking responsibility for our personal happiness is empowering. It puts our life back into our own hands. One might imagine that it is a burden to do so. The reality is that taking responsibility for our personal happiness sets us free.

I am responsible for accepting or choosing the values by which I live

I am responsible for the way I choose to live my life and the values I choose to keep. It is the choice of thinking, or letting someone else do the thinking for me. It is the choice to live consciously, or unconsciously. Responsibility sets me free, and gives me the opportunity to live life on my own terms and to adopt values that nourish my being.

I am responsible for raising my self-esteem

Self-esteem is not a gift that can be given to us. It is generated by what we do. Our actions are what causes our self-esteem to go up, or go down. Remember that self-esteem is the sum of our actions (and inactions). While our mind cannot possibly remember all the actions that we have taken, our psyche keeps track, and the sum is our level of self-esteem. To give up responsibility of raising our self-esteem, we sentence ourselves to a life of frustration, and low self-esteem.

A Note On God

The author notes a question he receives frequently while lecturing on self-esteem. “Why do you put your emphasis on what the individual must do to grow in self-esteem? Isn’t the source of self-esteem the fact that we are children of God?”

To this question, the author answers:

Whether one believes in a God, and whether one believes we are God’s children, is irrelevant to the issue of what self-esteem requires. Let us imagine that there is a God and that we are his/her/its children. In this respect, then, we are all equal. Does it follow that everyone is or should be equal in self-esteem, regardless of whether anyone lives consciously or unconsciously, responsibly or irresponsibly, honestly or dishonestly?

There is no way for our mind to avoid registering the choices we make in the way we operate and no way for our sense of self to remain unaffected. If we are children of God, the questions remain: What are we going to do about it? What are we going to make of it? Will we honor our gifts or betray them? If we betray ourselves and our powers, if we live mindlessly, purposelessly, and without integrity, can we buy our way out, can we acquire self-esteem, by claiming to be God’s relatives? Do we imagine we can thus relieve ourselves of personal responsibility?

A Clarification

The author clarifies that self-responsibility does not entail claiming responsibility for things that are outside of one’s control. To do so is to jeopardize self-esteem, as accidents and unfortunate events do inevitably happen to everyone. However, to deny responsibility for things that are in one’s control also jeopardizes self-esteem. It is important to be able to tell the difference between that which is up to me, and that which is not.

Self-Responsibility At Work And In Life

Self-responsibility shows up as an active orientation towards work (and life) rather than a passive one. If there is a problem, men and women who are self-responsible ask, “What can I do about it? What avenues of action are possible to me?” If something goes wrong, they ask, “What did I overlook? Where did I miscalculate? How can I correct the situation?” They do not protest, “But no one told me what to do!”, or “But it’s not my job!”. They indulge neither in alibis nor in blaming. They are typically solution oriented.

In every organization, there are those who take responsibility and those who do not. It is by the virtue of the first that organizations function properly and move forward.

Productiveness

One cannot say that they are practicing self-responsibility if they have no productive purposes. It is through work that we support our existence. It is possible that we may be limited by the opportunities that exist for us at any given time, but a person who practices self-responsibility asks: “What actions are possible to me?”, “What needs to be done?”, “How can I improve my condition?”, “How can I move beyond this impasse?”, “What will be the best use of my energies in this situation?”.

Self-responsibility is expressed through an active orientation towards life. It is expressed through the understanding that no one can spare us the necessity of independence, and that without work - independence is impossible.

Thinking for oneself

Living actively entails thinking for oneself. To live consciously means to use one’s own mind. To practice self-responsibility means to think for oneself. We can either exercise our own mind or pass that responsibility to someone else. Our choice in this matter will influence our level of self-esteem, and ultimately the kind of life that we live.

Often what people call “thinking” is merely recycling the opinions of others. So we can say that thinking independently - about our work, our relationships, the values that guide our life, the goals we set for ourselves - strengthens self-esteem. And healthy self-esteem results in a natural inclination to think independently.

The moral principle

By choosing to take responsibility for our own existence, we implicitly state that others do not exist for the fulfillment of our needs and wishes. By taking responsibility for our own existence, we no longer expect others to do that which we can do ourselves, and for ourselves. This is the moral foundation of good will, mutual respect and benevolence among human beings. It rejects the notion that some people can be treated as sacrificial fodder for the goals of others, which the author notes is the premise underlying all dictatorships and most political systems.

We are not morally entitled to treat other human beings as a means to our ends, just as we are not a means to theirs.

Never ask a person to act against his or her self-interest as he or she understands it.

No One Is Coming

The author ends this chapter by reminding us that no one is coming. No one is coming to save us, or make life right for us. No one is coming to solve our problems for us. If we don’t choose to take responsibility for our lives, nothing is going to get better.

The dream of a rescuer who will deliver us may offer a kind of comfort, but it leaves us passive and powerless. We may feel if only I suffer long enough, if only I yearn desperately enough, somehow a miracle will happen, but this is the kind of self-deprecation one pays for with one’s life as it drains away into the abyss of unredeemable possibilities and irretrievable days, months, decades.

The author believes that we as human beings are not intended to remain dependent children. He believes that our destiny is to grow into adults, which means to become responsible for ourselves, for our happiness, our successes, our relationships, our finances, our self-esteem - our lives. Indeed, there are tremendous possibilitites for greatness and success when we take responsibility for our existence.